opinions to greater clearness and precision, and conceiving happiness in its most obvious and palpable and intelligible form, in the form in which it was viewed by the vulgar, advocated a system of hedonism, as it has been called, from the Greek word ἡδονή, in which mere sensual pleasure is set forth as the great good and ultimate end of man.
9. It is evident that the sensational ethics of Aristippus had their roots in the sensational psychology, of which I have already spoken at sufficient length in expounding the opinions of the Sophists. They arose, not out of the comprehensive and profound γνῶθι σεαυτόν of Socrates, which resulted in the discovery that the true nature and essence of man was thought, but out of the superficial and contracted γνῶθι σεαυτόν of the Sophists, which had issued in the conclusion that sensation was the staple and the essence of humanity. If sensation be the true and proper nature of man, the pursuit of sensational enjoyment must be his true and proper duty, and in attaining sensational enjoyment he must attain his true and proper end. If sensation be man's true nature, the pleasures of sensation must be man's true good. The ethics of Aristippus are thus in perfect logical consistency with the psychology on which they were founded. The only way in which such ethics can be overruled, is by combating the psychology which is their groundwork; in other words, their refutation must be founded on the proof that
